West Coast History of Science Society Meeting

University of California, San Francisco

April 11th - April 14th, 2002
[Program]

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Objectifying Smog: Initial Air Pollution Research Programs in Southern California

Joshua Dunsby
Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco
 

During the 1940s, smog became an increasingly frequent occurrence in Southern California, specifically in the Los Angeles area. Little was known about smog s source or formation process; however, this new air pollution problem was widely recognized to be man-made. Thus, as a matter of public concern and economic interest, research programs were begun to investigate the nature of this contentious phenomenon. How did researchers transform the public problem of smog into a scientific problem? How did the public experience of smog shape its scientific analysis? This paper will answer these questions by examining initial definitions of smog produced from public complaints. Moreover, it will address the ways that researchers established connections to lay public experience, especially the effect of eye irritation, which served as bridge between different knowledge communities as well as between different methods of investigating smog. Acceptance of the photochemical theory of smog formation, in particular, was contingent on the ability of researchers to credibly reproduce these subjective effects of smog in the laboratory, even as this process worked to distance the lay public from expert understandings of smog.